Language evolution

By the 4th century, the late Achaemenid period, the inscriptions of
Artaxerxes II and Artaxerxes III differ enough from the
language of Darius' inscriptions to be called a "pre-Middle
Persian," or "post-Old Persian." Old Persian subsequently evolved
into Middle Persian, which is in turn
the nominal ancestor of New
Persian.Professor Gilbert Lazard, a famous Iranologist and the
author of the book Persian Grammar states:

The language known as New Persian, which usually is
called at this period (early Islamic times) by the name of
Parsi-Dari, can be classified linguistically as a continuation of
Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of
Sassanian Iran, itself a continuation of Old Persian, the language
of the Achaemenids.

It had its origin in Fars and is
differentiated by dialectical features, still easily recognizable
from the dialect prevailing in north-western and eastern
Iran.

Middle Persian, also sometimes called Pahlavi is a direct
continuation of old Persian, and was used as the written official
language of the country.Consequently, Modern Persian is one of the few Indo-European languages which has extant
writing in its old, middle and modern form. Comparison of the
evolution at each stage of the language shows great simplification
in grammar and syntax. In fact according to available documents,
Persian language is an Iranian language all whose three
Old, Middle, and New stages are known to represent one and the same
language; in other words New Persian is a direct descendent of
Middle and Old Persian.

Substrates

Old Persian "presumably" has a Median
languagesubstrate. The Median
element is readily identifiable because it did not share in the
developments that were peculiar to Old Persian. Median forms "are
found only in personal or geographical names [...] and some are
typically from religious vocabulary and so could in principle also
be influenced by Avestan." "Sometimes, both Median and Old Persian
forms are found, which gave Old Persian a somewhat confusing and
inconsistent look: 'horse,' for instance, is [attested in Old
Persian as] both asa (OPers.) and aspa
(Med.)."

Script

Old Persian was written from left to right in the syllabic Old Persian cuneiform script.
The Old Persian cuneiform contains 36 signs representing vowels and consonants, 8
logograms, and 3 signs which can be
combined to represent any numeral, although only a few numbers are
actually attested in the inscriptions.

Ulrich Ammon, Norbert Dittmar, Klaus J. Mattheier, Peter
Trudgill, "Sociolinguistics Hsk 3/3 Series Volume 3 of
Sociolinguistics: An International Handbook of the Science of
Language and Society", Walter de Gruyter, 2006. 2nd edition. pg
1912: "Middle Persian, also called Pahlavi is a direct continuation
of old Persian, and was used as the written official language of
the country." "However, after the Moslem conquest and the collapse
of the Sassanids, Arabic became the dominant language of the
country and Pahlavi lost its importance, and was gradually replaced
by Dari, a variety of Middle Persian, with considerable loan
elements from Arabic and Parthian."

Bo Utas, "Semitic on Iranian", in "Linguistic convergence and
areal diffusion: case studies from Iranian, Semitic and Turkic"
editors (Éva Ágnes Csató, Bo Isaksson, Carina Jahani),Routledge,
2005. pg 71: "As already mentioned, it is not likely that the
scribes of Sassanian chanceries had any idea about the Old Persian
cuneiform writing and the language couched in it. Still, Middle
Persian language that appeared in the third century AD may be seen
as a continuation of Old Persian

: 238-245

: 56–85

Further reading

University Of Chicago (2007, June 22). Everyday Text Shows That
Old Persian Was Probably More Commonly Used Than Previously
Thought.[48247][48248]